


call it heaven, call it home

by carlemon



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, M/M, Tad Gets The Hugs He Deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 08:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12406800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlemon/pseuds/carlemon
Summary: Put like that, he could spend all day here in this particular stuffy little corner of Bullworth, unsure if he’s sweating because of the heater under the bed or the still-warm dampness of Ricky, flush against him, or whatever aftershave Ricky's using that hangs so thickly in the air and in his throat.





	call it heaven, call it home

Ricky actually hisses when Tad curls away from him for the umpteenth time, bristling up in a way that’s somehow more endearing than genuinely exasperating. Tad peers at him down the bridge of his nose, eyeing the attractive bob of his adam’s apple, too comfortable as he is nestled into Ricky’s lap to twist down and kiss it. Ricky seems to take his scrutiny as disdain —not an _entirely_ unfair assumption, really— and scowls, sliding one warm hand ‘round Tad’s waist to toy at the hem of his shirt.

“You got somewhere to be?” His lazy drawl comes laden with a sleepy affection that wrenches Tad’s gut with equal parts contempt and adoring, the former as fleeting as the accusation that hides along the line of Ricky’s mouth. The hand on his back curves up the ridge of his spine, playing each notch, playing Tad like a goddamn fiddle.

Let Derby think what he likes, Tad muses, feeling dirty and shameless, pampered. The greasers _were_ good with their hands. 

"Watch it _,”_ he snaps, curling a fist into the hair at Ricky’s crown in warning. “That’s _silk._ I can’t trash this one, Aquaberry’s new collection doesn’t come ‘til May, and Gord’ll stop lending me things if I keep returning them covered in _grease.”_

Ricky sneers at him. “Hey, don’ avoid the question. I took a shower, didn’t I?”

Tad laughs drily, choosing not to press the matter, because— he did. Tad can smell it on him, can feel it in the damp knots of his hair, the slow, dewy, flutter of his eyelashes. He’s most tolerable— bearable when he’s like this, still soft with steam and verging on malleable, all his grease and pomade and engine oil rendered the problem of Bullworth and its drains. Virtual putty in Tad’s hands. “Yes, _thank you_ for your sacrifice.” Swatting away Ricky’s hands when they curve ‘round the inside of his thighs to direct them back to his hips instead, he sighs. “If you must know, I have to pick up my bike from the garage— don’t look at me like that. You think I’m going to walk to Harrington house?”

Ricky makes another vague, verging on indignant sound that’s almost entirely drowned by the whirr of the portable heater going full blast at the foot of his bunk. “The _garage_ ,” he grouches, voice low and dark, but pleasantly so, “for a warped wheel? I coulda fixed that for you.” — _This_ , clumsy in his mouth, falling further than _just_ short of a casual afterthought.

Tad regards him quizzically. Washed out by the light filtered in through the shutters, Ricky squirms. “What?” he whines, jeer betrayed by the hoarseness that threatens to overwhelm his cadence, “I coulda. All the garages do ‘s put, like, a pretty little bow on her. Ain’t my fault you treat her like shit.” The pads of his fingertips twitch atop the edges of Tad’s hipbones, faltering as always, though only for a fraction of a second, when they fail to taper or smoothen out.

Smiling thinly, Tad curls a little further into him, tilting his head back and up to better regard him and hoping to god he isn’t in the mood to really get his _teeth_ into Tad’s neck, just to fuck with him an hour before he’s supposed to be at Derby’s— funny, he’s never been able to feign even the lukewarm approximation of the easy, debonair, charisma Derby dons so easily, but here, draped over a greaser’s lap, it doesn’t seem to matter. "Are you offering?” he asks, tutting when Ricky’s grip goes slack around him, “You know, I never would’ve thought—”

“God, _c’mon_ —”

“—you’d come to _embrace_ your lower-class sensibilities; I’m not complaining, you know—”

“Man, _shut_ your freaking mouth.” snarls Ricky, a rush of hot breath and baritone quavering pleasantly against Tad’s throat. He props Tad up on second thought, disentangling them just enough to discern between where their legs end and the sheets begin. “All I’m sayin’ is,” he amends, “—you know. If y’need me.”’

“If I need you.” Ricky makes a face at him, but the feeling of his arms around him is so nice that it’s easy for Tad to fall back into him and resume his quiet ministrations, carding his fingers through Ricky’s still-damp hair like his life depends on it, like he’s got nothing better to do but steal away into the dorms and waste away on the whims of some glorified mechanic.

Put like that, he really doesn’t— he’s still got an hour ‘til he’s expected at the Harringtons’, where it’ll be cold and he’ll grovel at Derby’s feet in exchange for some modicum of respect and practice his accent to his phone in the bathroom ‘til it’s almost believable, and Ricky’s _so_ warm, and they’d worked _so_ hard to successfully jam the door shut, god forbid Hal come back early and find him swaddled up in Ricky’s bunk, wearing his ‘ _fuckin’ billion-dollar!’_ cologne into the wallpaper of their dorm. Put like that, he could spend all day here in this particular stuffy little corner of Bullworth, unsure if he’s sweating because of the heater under the bed or the still-warm dampness of Ricky, flush against him, or whatever aftershave Ricky’s using that hangs so thickly in the air and in his throat.

He feels giddy, and hot, lurching uncertainly when Ricky scoops him up from under the armpits, bodily throwing him off his lap and sliding off the bunk with one fluid motion. “ _Hey!_ ” he grinds out, too pleasantly sleepy to smooth out the cracks in his voice, “You _dink_ — what are you _doing?”_

Ricky looks at him, uncertainly, drowsily. Tad looks back, certainly, drowsily. “I need a cig?” He pauses, brows knit together, bemused and hopeful. “Thought you was goin’ somewhere?”

Shaking the pins and needles out of his dead legs, Tad wrings himself out, languishing over the end of the bunk. The ability to smile’s been coming to him easier, recently, and he gives Ricky a real beamer, all teeth, uninhibited by the heavy vowels and constricting consonants of his accent. “Not yet. Why? Do you want me to?”

Hair a mess courtesy of Tad’s too-eager, possibly-starved, touch and jacket a discarded mess on the ground, Ricky looks naked, pliable, an aesthetic Tad can appreciate as Ricky shimmies back onto his bed. “You gettin’ an attitude now, huh?” He winces as he stretches his legs out and Tad grins as he shuffles forward on his knees to tousle his hair, combing it over his forehead with his fingers. “Hey—watch it, yeah? Vance’s got all my conditioner, if you fuck it up—”

Tad snickers, suddenly acutely aware of his wet fingers. “It was already an atrocity,” he says, settling down into the bed. Ricky lets him rest his head on his chest and he stays like that for a moment, content to listen to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat before quipping: “what happened to your smoke?”

Ricky peers down at him. “I’unno. Shit, I don’t need it, Lefty’s already goin’ bronchitic. I think Slawter wants his lungs when he kicks it.” He nods at Tad’s shirt, crinkled and clear with sweat. “What happened to ya shirt?” Voice dropping a clandestine octave, he grins into Tad’s forehead, one hand beginning the easy sweeping, arc over his hips to rest on his ass, the other resuming their steady curl over his ribs. “Want me to help clean you up?”

Tad hums. “Maybe later,” he replies, and kisses Ricky’s adam’s apple as his eyes flutter shut.

**Author's Note:**

> im way too committed to this ship but please let someone love tad


End file.
